Letter from Buenos Aires;

Page 1

31
It's still true! Water does (sometimes,
at least) circle in the opposite direc­tion
south of the Equator!
About one year ago I wrote some­thing
that started with this statement
and used it to lead into our family's
reactions to our first three months of
living abroad—in Buenos Aires, Argen­tina.
At that time I compared our situ­ation
to being caught in a whirlpool of
new facts, ideas, customs, likes and dis­likes.
It seemed as if our family were
in the center of this whirlpool, and we
were expectantly wondering what new
experience awaited us.
I had come to Argentina on special
assignment in connection with techni­cal
coordination of the DPH&S Latin
American practice, which has based us
in Buenos Aires. Today we know the
city much better. We can even locate
places and streets to which we wish to
go and, when you consider the lack of
street signs here, this is no insignificant
accomplishment. As we have become
more familiar with the city, we are
convinced that Buenos Aires is a fine
place in which to live, and we have
become deeply impressed with its com­mercial,
industrial and seaport activ­ities,
and with its people, who number
more than six million.
In some inexplicable way, Buenos
Aires looks different from sister cities
on this continent. New and modern
buildings are just beginning to intrude
on its basic skyline of older Spanish
and European-influenced architecture.
It is a joy to walk its fabulously wide
avenidas (main thoroughfares gener­ally
of four or more lanes) and tight
little calles (streets) and look at all the
tiny little shops and gallerias (group­ings
of many tiny shops) among the
many massive, square, grand old build­ings
with their tile roofs, painted ce­ment
exteriors, high-arched windows
and iron-railed balconies. It is a pleas­ure
as well to view its tree-lined streets
and many, many parks, its flowers and
flowering trees and shrubs offering gor­geous
year-round displays of vivid col­ors,
beautifully contrasting the tropical
flora with those familiar to us from
most of the United States.
To me Buenos Aires is a city in mo­tion:
the frantic, scurrying street traf­fic;
the hundreds of people continually
rushing through Retiro railroad station
(more than through Grand Central in
New York, it seems to me); or a trip to
the famous "Boca"—the old port area,
a tourist-attracting Bohemian section.
Above all, to me it is a walk among
thousands of other pedestrians down
its most notable street, Florida. Here,
I think, you really feel the life of this
great city. You hear the sounds of its
crowds, you are bumped and jostled,
and you find a new facet of interest
with each such walk.
One thing that forcefully strikes the
average U.S. transferee on arriving
here is the heavy reliance on manual
labor, which is apparently the most
economical way of getting things done.
Construction workers can be seen pass­ing
materials along by hand, in ways
that remind you of the old bucket
brigades. Sand and gravel are often
moved in small pans looking like slight­ly
over-sized angel food cake pans.
And it really looks like hard work when
you see two members of a railroad
crew sitting on their little boxes cutting
a rail with what appears to be an over­sized,
two-man hacksaw. The most im­portant
position on such construction
crews seems to be that of the member
assigned to cook the noon asado (open-fire
barbecue); it seems very odd to
Since writing this article, Wil Harris has trans­ferred
to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to be partner in
charge of that office.
see the smoke and smell the cooking
meat even on Avenida Q de Julio, which
has been reported to be, or to have
been at one time, the world's widest
avenue.
I would term the people of Buenos
Aires happy people; they appear to
love to talk together rapidly and are
continually smiling or laughing when
in such group conversations. The peo­ple
on the streets here are quite dif­ferent
in appearance from those found
in other large South American cities.
Here they are generally taller, fairer
and more European in appearance,
thereby reflecting the assimilation of
the many nationality groups from both
the northern and southern regions of
that continent.
The women of the city need bow to
none, for they include an unusually
large number of fine-looking women.
Their outstanding traits would include
lovely hair and complexion and beau­tiful
eyes. And they seem to pull out
all stops in selecting their vividly col­ored
dresses, which often belie the con­tention
that girls cannot attractively
wear stripes running in the "wrong di­rection."
The Argentine men, quite opposite
from the girls, dress quite conserva­tively,
most often in very quiet gray,
blue and black suits with only a few
browns. Many comb their hair straight
back and moustaches are fairly com­mon.
Perhaps the most interesting
thing we have noted about them is the
proclivity of the men in the street to
be very avid girl-watchers. It is quite
common to see men on the big avenue,
Florida, just stop and watch a girl pass­ing,
particularly if she is wearing a
short skirt.
Season and weatherwise, living
south of the Equator causes us quite a
bit of confusion because the seasons are
the reverse of those in the North. We
must continually explain whose winter
and summer we are talking about, be­cause
summer in the Argentine is win­ter
in the U.S. and vice versa. Having
lived in the northern part of the United
States all of our lives, we just cannot
feel natural to be holding our swim­ming
parties at Christmas time. And it
seems most strange that at that season
the only bells you hear tinkling on
Florida are those of the local equiva­lent
of the Good Humor man.
Argentines appear outwardly to ex­perience
relatively little discomfort
from the humid summer heat, but they
show extreme reaction to the cold of
the winters (which I consider quite
mild). How I envy them in the sum-